Each day a different image or photograph is featured, with an
accompanying caption, which deals with various topics in Earth Science.

A White Christmas?

Looks like a good portion of the country has a chance to enjoy a White Christmas this year. With cold temperatures forecast across much of the country for the next several days, most of the snow on the ground will likely still be there on Christmas Day. The above NOAA snow map is from the 19th of December, and so does not include the snow from the storm that hit the Middle Atlantic area and New England on the evening of the 19th and morning of the 20th. A little more than 50% of the contiguous US is now covered with snow. It's unusual to have snow on the ground as far south as Arkansas and northern Georgia in mid December. Normally, only about the northern third of the US is snow covered on Christmas Day. Notice that Hudson Bay is more than 95% ice covered, and Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba in southern Canada are completely ice covered, as are the Great Slave and Bear Lakes in northern Canada. Even the bays on the Great Lakes have some ice.